


When Teddy Broke The Binary

by KrysKrossZee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Non-binary character, POV Teddy Lupin, POV Third Person, References to Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:56:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27153494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KrysKrossZee/pseuds/KrysKrossZee
Summary: Teddy decides that he has one last thing to do before he can go back to Hogwarts for his final year and that's to come out to his godparents.
Relationships: Teddy Lupin & Dominique Weasley, Teddy Lupin & Harry Potter & Ginny Weasley, Teddy Lupin & Victoire Weasley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5
Collections: The Founders Three Presents HP Next Gen Takeover 2020





	When Teddy Broke The Binary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KazOfScotland](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KazOfScotland/gifts).



> Finally written something for Pet Project again!!
> 
> For Kaz because they have been desperate for this to be written before we even planned the first.
> 
> Prompt used-
> 
> Non-binary Teddy Lupin coming out to his godparents and expecting them to reject him.
> 
> Let me know what you think and hopefully, I'll manage to get the next part of Moonlit Prosperity beta'd and up soon!

"I can come with you if you'd like?" Dominique suggested but Teddy quickly shook his head. This was something that he had to do alone. He couldn't ask the girl to leave her house either. She needed rest and watching him stress out about this was going to be counterproductive to that.

"I'll be fine, Nique." He promised, giving her hand a small squeeze. So far she was the only person that he'd told, but she was the first person that he told about anything. She was the best secret keeper and hadn't even told her sister that he was in love with her, which he knew was extremely difficult for the blonde.

"I know you'll be fine." She said quietly with a slight shake of her head. "That's not my point. I just want to be there for you." She left the 'like you're there for me' unsaid, but Teddy knew it was there. He always knew what she was trying to say even when she said nothing at all, that was something that came from them being the closest of friends.

He knew she had Auggie Longbottom as well, something that he was definitely grateful for considering that he knew that at the end of the school year his plan was to become an auror like his mum was and that would mean having to leave her for long periods of time. It was bad enough when he was at school and didn't know how she was until an owl delivered one of her lessons. Every gap in between was like torture as he waited to see whether she had gotten sick again before her family owl arrived again. Auror training was going to be even worse torture for him, that was for sure.

He ran his fingers through his hair that was currently changing colours so rapidly that he couldn't seem to control them. He was starting to think that maybe he should just keep his mouth shut. He was moving out of the Potters' come summer so what was the point rocking the boat now, especially when they could turn around and throw him out. He didn't think that he could handle that, in fact he knew that he couldn't handle it. He needed them, they were the only family that he had left since his gran had passed away, but that was exactly why he needed them to know. Because they were his family.

He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Dominique's temple and out of habit tucked her blanket in around her. "Look after yourself, okay? No wild parties or skinny dipping."

Dominique rolled her eyes. "Yes sir." She reached up to cup his cheek gently in her palm and Teddy couldn't ignore the exhaustion in her eyes. He bit back his guilt but he knew that he'd kept her awake for too long. She was still recovering from her last bout of flu and she was lucky that the hospital had even let her come home in time for Christmas.

"Love you, Nique." He whispered before he gave her a small wave and headed out of the girl's room, heading down the stairs to where Victoire was currently stood in the living room.

Victoire was his second favourite person on the planet, but he didn't think he had the capacity to deal with her today. He needed to get home before he completely chickened out of talking to Harry and Ginny, but at the same time, there was something about Victoire that he just couldn't resist.

"She alright?" Victoire asked with a nod towards the ceiling. Of course, the first words out of her mouth would be about Dominique. Dominique was the only thing that was ever on the strawberry blonde's mind after all, which was the main reason that he had never bothered to act upon his feelings towards her. There wasn't much point when she wasn't interested in dating him.

"Yeah, I think she's gonna try and sleep, and I'm gonna head home." He told her, trying to keep his smile in place on his lips. He didn't know what it was about Victoire that always made him feel so nervous, but there was definitely  _ something _ , and he wasn't one hundred percent sure if that something was a good something, especially not when she had never shown any sort of sign that she was even aware of how he felt.

Victoire was quiet for a moment before she tilted her head ever so slightly. "Are you alright?" She asked, her question taking him by surprise.

"Oh. Um.. y' know. Just…" He gestured vaguely. He didn't really know if he could tell her about his secret, even though part of him really wanted to. It was particularly inviting to further half the burden of his secret by sharing it with another, and he supposed that he could trust Victoire not to go off running her mouth, not that she really had anyone to tell anyway. She had friends at school, sure, but from what he'd seen they weren't really the sort of friends that she could talk to. She wasn't really at school all that often to make the sort of friendships like the one that she had formed with Dominique and Teddy supposed in himself as well.

"You in a rush?" Victoire asked, glancing over her shoulder towards the kitchen where Teddy could hear a kettle boiling. It made him want to stay, to want to pour his heart out to her more than anything, so he found himself shaking his head and following her into the kitchen. He never had been able to say no to her.

He watched as Victoire made them both tea and they took a seat at the kitchen table. Victoire sat her phone next to her on the table and he couldn't help but note that her screen lit up a few times, but he convinced himself that it was just Molly and Auggie checking in to see how Nique was. They were both silents for a little while, which suited him just fine as he was able to calm his racing thoughts down somewhat. Still, when she spoke he found that he had to freeze.

"You seem jumpy." She commented, her voice soft, almost inviting him to spill but at the same time not pressuring him. He was well aware that 'jumpy' was not something that anyone was used to from him. He was usually the one who kept their cool in every situation, that the burden that came with being the oldest.

"I… I guess." He said quietly, a sigh escaping him before he decided just to bite the bullet and get it over with. "I'm just trying to psych myself up to tell Harry and Ginny something. I… I think I'm non-binary." He paused for a breath. "No, actually, I  _ know _ I'm non-binary."

He couldn't ignore the frown that was now on Victoire's face. It wasn't an angry or hurt one though, just one of confusion, which was something that he could sort of deal with.

"What's that mean?" She asked slowly when he didn't continue. He'd been told to prepare himself for these sort of questions, but that didn't mean that he was actually prepared for them.

"Uh. It's about gender. There's binary gender, which is male or female, and there's non-binary gender which is... not." He ran his fingers through his hair as he pulled in a slow breath. "I don't feel male, but I definitely don't feel female either. Sometimes… Sometimes I feel like I could be male but I think my gender is more fluid. Tanya said that my relationship with gender could be related to my metamorphism, but all I know is that I don't feel like 'male' is who I am."

Victoire listened, nodding slightly as she took it all in, and Teddy tried not to think about how this would probably tarnish any chance that he possibly ever had with her in the first place. He couldn't have kept lying to himself just to keep her happy though, he had to be true to himself so that he could be happy.

"I'm not sure I fully understand." Victoire admitted before she added, "But thank you for telling me."

Teddy managed to give her a small smile. He didn't expect people to understand something that he didn't fully understand himself, but the fact that both Dominique and now Victoire were happy to listen to him, helped. He couldn't even fully explain how much them listening to him had helped.

"Thanks." He said quietly. "I've told Nique, and now you, but other than Tanya, no-one else knows. My - uh - my plan is to talk to Harry and Ginny tonight because I don't really want to go back to school to live a lie, but now with James starting school, he'll obviously overhear things."

Victoire nodded slightly as if she at least understood that part. She probably did, considering that she knew first hand what it was like to find something out second hand. He had been there with her when she had overheard her parents talking about how ill Dominique was when the girl had not received her Hogwarts letter two years ago. Their words back then had been "thank Merlin, she's too sick to go" and those were something that had stuck with him for a long time. He'd been fifteen at the time, Victoire thirteen, and both of them had been gullible enough to believe that one day their little ball of light would one day get better.

"I...I don't know how they'll take it." He admitted, his voice shaking ever so slightly. He was preparing himself for the worst and had even considered owling Tanya just to check if he could stay with her for the night if things did end up going pear-shaped. He knew that both Harry and Ginny loved him, but this was more a case of would they be able to trust him after he revealed his true self.

"They'll understand, Teds," Victoire promised him as she took his hand into her own, giving it a small squeeze. This gesture, though small, did actually make him feel a lot better. The girl who had his heart wasn't repulsed by him, and that meant a lot, 

"I hope so." He said quietly as he turned his attention to his tea, hoping that the warmth would take the chill out of his neck and stop his hair from standing on edge there.

**

Teddy took a deep breath as he stepped out of the fireplace in the Potter House. He was home late, so he half expected to get a lecture for that. It wasn't past his curfew, but it was past Lily's bedtime and the little girl liked to see him before she went to bed. He couldn't worry about that on top of worrying about being rejected by the only family that he had left.

"There you are." Ginny flashed him a smile as he made his way into the kitchen where she was washing the dishes. "Did you want dinner? Harry left you some on the counter."

Her tone didn't seem to be conclusive with a lecture, which he was taking as a good sign, though he decided just to help her with the dishes anyway. He was aware that the pair of them could have just used magic to wash them, but there was something cathartic about doing mundane tasks like this by hand.

"I'm not hungry." He said quietly. Ginny was probably the closest thing he's ever had to a mother (other than maybe his gran), so he couldn't blame her for shooting him a concerned glance when he said that so he quickly followed it up with "I ate at Shell Cottage." It wasn't a complete lie; he's had lunch there, but that was a few hours ago now. However, he knew that he wouldn't be able to stomach anything now until after he'd had an honest conversation with his godparents.

"Are you alright, Teddy?" She asked gently after watching him for a moment. She knew him well enough to know when something wasn't quite right, but Teddy didn't know if he could talk to them individually. He didn't know if having the same conversation was something that he could survive.

"I've got something I want to talk to you and Harry about," Teddy told her after some quiet contemplation.

"He's just putting Lils and Al to bed." Ginny had a frown on her lips, but fortunately, she didn't press him for more information that he wasn't ready to give her. "He won't be long."

Teddy gave a slight nod before he turned his attention to the last of the dishes, drying them before putting everything back in the cupboards. He avoided eye contact with the woman as he headed back through to the living room. He knew that now she was probably expecting the worst, but that was maybe for the best, at least when he finally told her what was going on, then she might be relieved?

Teddy ended up staring at the pages of a book, his plan had been to read the book, but the words just didn't make any sense. They all seemed to blur together and dance across the page, taunting him until he heard the living room door click shut and he looked up to see both of his godparents staring down at him.

"Are you… are you in trouble, Teddy?" Ginny asked slowly as he closed his book and looked up at them properly.

"What?" Teddy didn't mean to yelp, it just slipped out as his eyes widened. "No, no. I'm not in - I'm not in trouble." He stuttered out, not even entirely sure what they were implying by that, but having a couple of guesses in mind.

He saw Harry breathe a sigh of relief and the pair sat down opposite him. His words were a lot more reassuring than his actions, however, but they did leave him wondering what sort of 'trouble' they thought he could be in. He was too afraid to ask, even as Harry spoke.

"If you were, we'd be here for you. You know that, right?"

"Yes," Teddy said quietly. "But it's nothing like that. I just… I want to tell you about me, something that I've only discovered about me." He ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to summon the courage to continue. "I… I'm not a boy." He pulled in a slow breath before following it up with, "but I'm not a girl either."

"What are you talking about, Teddy?" Harry asked slowly, his eyes scanning over Teddy's face in a way that told him that he was looking for the joke, but Teddy wasn't joking.

"I'm trying to tell you that I'm non-binary. I identify as a gender outside of make and female. I don't have a name for my gender, I just know that those labels don't fit me." He knew that it probably sounded like he was talking nonsense to them, but this was something that needed to be said.

"You…" Ginny started but she trailed off, shaming her head slightly. Teddy knew that they didn't understand, but he could at least see that they were trying.

"I know it's confusing, but it doesn't actually change anything about me, I guess. I'm still Teddy. I just… wanted you both to know before I go back to school and come out to my friends…" He was glad that so far no-one had gotten angry, but their almost non-reaction was unsettling. "I…" He looked between them. "I think I'm going to head to bed." He said quietly before he got up to leave.

"Teddy." Harry caught his write as he walked past. "We love you for you, please know that."

Teddy manages to give them both a small smile. "I know." He said quietly before he pulled his arm away and continued on his way up the stairs to his room. He couldn't help but drag his feet on the stairs, listening to see if they would talk about him once he was gone, but if they were then they were talking in hushed tones.

He just wanted to curl up in his bed and slowly disappear into the land of nod but as he approached his bedroom he could see that wasn't going to be possible. There was a light on inside which meant that James was using it as his own personal den once again. He normally didn't mind him hanging out there until his bedtime, but tonight he really did want to be alone.

He sighed as he pushed his door open and saw the younger boy sprawled across his bed.

"Hey Teds." James flashed him an upside down grin, not bothering to move from his all too comfortable position.

"Don't you fancy an early night?" Teddy asked with a sigh as he grabbed a fresh pair of pyjamas from his drawer. He didn't want to have to kick James out, but he really didn't feel up to having company, especially not from someone who was basically like his kid brother.

"Nope." James popped the 'p' and Teddy only just managed to suppress the groan that was slowly rising up inside of him.

He didn't have the heart to tell him to clear off though so instead he went to the bathroom to change before he mumbled a "budge up" to James so that he could collapse onto his own bed. He closed his eyes as he let just how exhausted he was catch up with him. He'd come out to four people after all, and that was on top of looking after Dominique. While looking after his best friend wasn't physically exhausting, it was mentally, especially when he had to keep himself from looking too worried about her all the time. It was no surprise that he drifted off to sleep with James there on the bed, chattering away about all the things that he and Fred were going to get up to when they went to Hogwarts in just a few days time.

*"

"How'd it go?" Dominique asked once they'd got her settled on the sofa in the living room at Shell Cottage. Teddy had arrived just as she was being helped down the stairs so he'd taken over from her mother. Dominique had at least been nice enough to wait until Fleur was out of earshot to start firing questions at him.

"I think I blew their minds." Teddy admitted with a soft sigh as he ran his fingers through her hair. She was lying across the sofa with her head on his lap and her oxygen tank leaning against his leg. She looked so pale and felt so light, but he was doing his best not to worry about her too much, especially when she had felt fit enough to leave her bed in the first place. "They weren't mad though, so that's something."

Dominique gave a slight nod before she allowed her eyes to close. "Vicky says you told her, made her panic a little, actually. Not trying to boost your ego here or anything but it made her worry that she's maybe not as heterosexual as she thought she was."

Teddy blinked rapidly at that as he tried to figure out what exactly that meant. Was that Dominique's way of telling him that Victoire liked him without actually saying the words? The possibility made him feel sick, but not in a bad way, just in the kind that meant that he was nervous. Despite knowing this, he knew he still couldn't act on it, especially not when he was coming up to his last year at Hogwarts and he had no idea where he would be next summer. She was just a kid as well, she didn't need his five year plan, especially not when she was the sort of person to live from one day to the next.

"She's glad you told her though, as am I." Dominique continued as she captured his hand with her own. "Sounds like everyone is. The thing is my dear Edward, we all love you and we just want you to be happy."

Teddy blinked rapidly at that. It was hard for him to believe that everyone could so easily brush it all under the rug like that. It was a big deal to him, but everyone seemed to be acting as if this was just part and parcel of him being Teddy. He supposed that was exactly what it was, but it all just seemed very anticlimactic.

'I love you, Nique." He said as she settled down with her head on his lap.

"I know." She said with the cheekiest of grins. It was nice to see her looking a bit more like her usual self, though he was still waiting for the colour to return to her cheeks and for the blue to leave her lips. He tried not to fixate on this though and reminded himself that she was at least out of hospital and not enjoying another one of her extended stays.

"Read to me?" She asked and Teddy noted that her eyes had in fact closed as she relaxed. He wasn't going to argue with her - what Dominique wanted, Dominique got and he would never argue with that. Why would he when every day that she had with them was a gift? In general, Dominique was a gift but that went without being said.

When she made it apparent that she wasn't actually going to move to let him go and get a book, he pulled his wand from his pocket and accio'd one to them. Dominique loved stories, but it wasn't often that she had the energy to actually read for herself. He didn't mind though, he quite enjoyed reading to her as he had done to all his cousins before her.

He was surprised to find that the book he had summoned already had one of Dominique's bookmarks in it and after he started reading he realised that this was actually one that they had started together at some point.

As he read to her, he let himself mull over how he might have just done one of the biggest, scariest things of his life (so far), but it was as if nothing had happened. He supposed that this was how it should be. It should have to be a big deal when anyone came out whether they're gay, bi, non-binary, or have absolutely no idea. A sense of relief - and pride - washed over him as he proudly thought of how easy it would now be for any of his adopted family to come out, should they wish to. Every single one could feel safe in the knowledge that they would not be rejected.

Teddy couldn't help but smile at that and he was about to tell Dominique what he had realised when he saw that she was now actually fast asleep. He didn't dare wake her. She needed all the rest that she could get while her body continued to heal. 

Instead Teddy ran his fingers through her hair and closed the book, setting it aside as he leaned back in his seat. A nap seemed like a good idea to him too anyway. He'd hardly slept the night before, mainly because of his swirling thoughts but also because James wouldn't go to his own room - he was apparently dick of sharing with a baby and he wouldn't be told that Albus was definitely not a baby but the boy would not be told.

Teddy let out an almost content sigh. This was how life should be, he decided.


End file.
